Exhorder - Fateful Finality
Aug 4th 2025
Schwarzer Keiler, Stuttgart, Germany
Review By:
Stefan Raspl
The "Schwarzer Keiler" is a tiny venue, that can pack maybe 100+
persons. Which guarantees a rather intimate atmosphere, but is also a
bit sad, as you'd hope a band as legendary as EXHORDER would draw a
bigger crowd. Kyle Thomas, their frontman, manned the merch table,
which was really cool - that guy must be a workhorse!
The club had really good attendance, I'd estimate 80-100. Which also
immediately exposed a rather huge drawback: Unless you're standing
right up in front of the stage, or are taller than 6ft 4, you will
hardly see more than the faces of the performers - drummers will remain
completely invisible. Actually, this is one of the locations where you
start to appreciate(!) people raising their cellphones, since you can
finally see a bit more of the stage action on their screens.
Opening act was a local band called FATEFUL FINALITY. They played
something that I'd describe as melodic Thrash, and put on quite a show
on the tiny stage: Especially the main vocalist gave it all - huge
props for that. Sound was, as expected, a bit muddy in the beginning,
but OK after a while, although the guitars were way too thin. They had
a dual vocalist approach going, which is never a bad idea in my
opinion, but the second vocalist sounded way too similar to the main
one in the first few tracks. That improved later on in their 45' set,
and his contributions were clearly distinct from the main vocals. Of
course, as a local act, they got quite a bonus, and there was lots of
stage banter between songs, including the announcement of their next
release on May 8, 2026 - which is a bit puzzling, since that's a very
specific date far out. Maybe I didn't get the joke. They sure got the
crowd going and had great response, but music-wise didn't leave a
memorable impression.
Enter EXHORDER: Once done with their setup, Kyle casually walked from
the merch table on stage, grabbed a guitar, and started to rip. Holy
crap, was that an improvement in terms of sound! Their guitar sound is
absolutely crushing, and they played a relentless set with good
variety. Kyle joked that they would play songs from all their albums,
adding that that's not hard, since they only got four out so far. He
was very communicative, and clearly enjoyed the gig. With Pat O'Brien
on second guitar, they have somebody who knows exactly how to forge
some proper steel in their ranks, but sadly his solos were not clear
enough to tell how they compared to the recordings. He, as well as
Jason on Bass, were very focused on their instruments, hence Kyle was
clearly the center of attention. The band was very tight, and fluently
shifted from high speed thrash to slower, heavy passages. The drummer
also did a fine job, and the musicianship overall was on a high level.
As mentioned, guitar duties were handled very competently, and although
some folks might remember that Kyle played guitar in FLOODGATE, it was
still a surprise to see how effortlessly he handled double duties. His
vocals sounded awesome, he seems to have hardly aged in that regard.
With Ozzy's demise not even 2 weeks ago, playing their BLACK SABBATH
cover of "Into the void" was to be expected, and was as heavy as you
could wish for within their well over an hour long set.
All in all a very entertaining evening, but one would wish Exhorder all
the well-deserved success, so next time we can see them in a venue
where the band is more than a bunch of talking heads.
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